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"[Bono] basically shot my chance of becoming the leader of the band." -- Larry |
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"[Bono] basically shot my chance of becoming the leader of the band." -- Larry |
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Like a Song: The Fly
@U2,
September 09, 2007
[Ed. note: This is the eighth in a series of personal essays by the @U2 staff about songs and/or albums that have had great meaning or impact in our lives.]
 I have a confession to make: I don't know all of U2's songs, including "Like A Song." I can't even hum it. There are places in the band's back catalog that I simply do not wish to explore, and I'm not sure why. Balancing out my inexplicable apathy for "A Celebration," "Rejoice," "Indian Summer Sky," and about a dozen more is my near-pathological adoration for other songs: if I had to, I would gladly sacrifice every U2 album from the 1980s (and this decade too), if it meant saving "The Fly." And I don't mean that I would merely destroy my own U2 CDs. I would obliterate those albums from my memory and everyone else's forever, as if they never existed. This is how much I love "The Fly.""Don't tell me that's Bono," spat my friend who sort of liked but also sort of hated U2. We were watching MTV during the fall of 1991, and this was how I was introduced to my favorite U2 song. My television's two-inch speaker did not allow me to hear the music the way I would have liked, but I could tell that it didn't sound like U2. It was meaner and distorted with this strange high part that drifted in and out. What was most alarming and delightful to me was the band's new image. Joy to the world, they had finally tossed out the old man pants and general Tom Joad aesthetic. The video was a blur of dark colors, flashes of skin, sunglasses, and shininess. Tight, sexy, black leather shininess... "What, are they trying to be INXS now?" my friend shrugged as the song finished. But I wanted to see it again. "The Fly" became an instant favorite of mine. I listened to it until it became a sort of musical talisman. I even used Edge's spectacular guitar solo as a learning tool that taught kindergarteners about the language of abstract art. Along with other musical snippets, I played that portion of the song for my little students and asked them to draw what they heard. I was utterly charmed when the Hendrix-caliber solo sprinted down its mad, spiraling path and sent the children into a scribbling frenzy.  While I adored "The Fly," I never truly understood it until a couple of years later, when I began to live it. I met a man and began an ultimately doomed, long-distance relationship with him. Being with this man was a bad choice for me, but I didn't realize it at the time. Well, maybe a voice inside my head thought so, but I decided to ignore that voice.  ...and he was the voice of my beloved, whispering his wicked slogans in my ear, cooing like an angel, and calling me chiiiiiild.
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